Power Tools

It's Blogtober and I'm 4 days late to the party already. Time for some intense backdating.

I was 5 when I watched Titanic, although I've remembered myself as being 3 for some reason. I can't say I understood everything that happened in the movie - whatever happened with the place that had all the vintage car stuff was a complete mystery, and I'm pretty sure Dubai censorship rules are the reason I never realized Jack's painting was a nude painting.

But there's a reason why the movie was hailed the way it was - and still is. And that is the sense of something so vast and inescapable. The sense of watching a tragedy unfold in real time, and being made to feel helpless by it.

Something like that is incredibly tragic. Watching men self-destruct in real time, on the other hand, is tragicomic.

My friend watched me laugh as I compared a couple of people I've dated - their patterns of self-destructive behaviours, their detachment, the utter hopelessness of pinning your hopes on someone like they. And she was moved to comment on how it really wasn't funny, how she wouldn't be laughing if someone had behaved with her the way these two had with me.

And I suppose that's fair. She'd be angry. People normally react with sadness and anger when they come across such behaviours, or such people. But to me, now, being as uninvested as I am in anyone as a potential partner, and feeling like I've already been through some of the very worst, it comes off as hilarious.

It's hilarious that there's a marketing press release masquerading as a dude on my Tinder.

It's hilarious that there's a hermit who claims he's lazy and easygoing, failing to see that anyone who puts as much effort into not feeling anything is being anything but.

It's hilarious that people tell me I'm their friend, and then go on to do things that my friends and I would never even dream of doing to each other.

It's hilarious that some people still think ignoring their significant others/ friends with benefits/ (insert term for women who inevitably end up doing tonnes of emotional labour for you) on social media makes them seem like anything but incredibly crass and uncivilized.
It's hilarious that I once thought that was perfectly acceptable.

It's hilarious that anyone above the age of 13 still thinks making crude puns can be considered "glib" or "flirting."

These days, I find myself laughing about very inopportune things.

I laugh when I read about gruesome sexual harassment campaigns. I laugh when I read accounts of toxic misogyny in that other law school, because they're word for word what we'd write about the toxic misogyny in our law school. I laugh and shake my head as I wonder when, if ever, we'd have our own #MeToo movement.

I laugh at memories. I laugh because little more than a year ago I would have considered them sacred and inviolable. They aren't, obviously. People who aren't me have gone to great lengths to ensure that they aren't, that they can't ever be again.

What's left is laughter, because it's better than crying, or shouting in anger. Laughter, because you're helpless to change anything. Laughter, because if this were happening to somebody else, it'd be funny, and to be honest, I'm not all that certain it's happening to me.